Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A search for you know what yielded this, with an interesting bit of information...

The First release of the Fortis is being developed in both 10mm Auto and .45ACP, there will be other calibers available in the future.

Interesting, very interesting, especially if all one has to do for a caliber change is to change uppers. As of yet the only pistol line I've seen that has this capability is EAA's Witness line, which is basically a clone of the highly-esteemed CZ75. Coincidentally, the Witness is one of the very few non-Glock and non-1911 pistols out there chambered for the 10mm. The reports I've seen on the Witness have been mixed, evocative of the old poem...

There was a little girl who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead;When she was good, she was very, very good,And when she was bad she was horrid.

Contributing to the horrid part of that equation is what I've heard about EAA's customer service, which is pretty much that it's the absolute worst in the gun business. From what I've heard about the Witness it's built like a bank vault, much like the Ruger P-Series pistols, and for that reason I had considered making a Witness my first 10mm -- but I heard about said customer service and decided to bite the bullet, so to speak, and get a Kimber. For what I paid for that gun I probably could have bought TWO Witnesses. It'll be interesting to see how much of a dent in the sales of the Witnesses the new Fortis will put in, and how said dent causes EAA to respond vis-a-vis customer service. If it causes them to change things that would be nothing but a good thing, even if the Fortis is priced competitively with a mid-level 1911, as Fortis GM Eric Kincel said on the blog. I'm guessing that would be between $700-900, compared with about $450 for the Witness from what I remember when I was looking for a 10mm way back when. I'd pay for it. Quality costs money, but when it comes to things like firearms, that quality is -- at least up to a point -- always worth more than you pay for it.More info on the Fortis here.

Unorganized Militia Propaganda Corps

About Me

I am a very opinionated guy, Texan and quite proud of it. I lean toward the right politically but have a few libertarian tendencies that my conservative brothers and sisters might not agree with. I like guns, old country music and a lot of other things.

Essential Reading

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty -- so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator -- and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.-- Cesare Beccaria, in On Crimes And Punishments, later quoted by Thomas Jefferson

Echo

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.-- Alexander Hamilton